{"id":63,"date":"2017-11-09T23:44:34","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T23:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.caleb-perkins.com\/?p=63"},"modified":"2019-05-01T20:11:32","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T20:11:32","slug":"behind-the-scenes-with-blizzard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/2017\/11\/09\/behind-the-scenes-with-blizzard\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind The Scenes With Blizzard"},"content":{"rendered":"

On November 1st, I got the chance to attend a behind-the-scenes event with the campus game developer club (Texas Aggie Game Developers) where artists from Blizzard gave an inside look at the life and culture of the World of Warcraft team.\u00a0 Jeff Parrott (Art Manager) and Steve Nelson (Senior 3D Artist) connected with us through a conference call.\u00a0 Here are some of the notes and highlights from the presentation.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

Blizzard Culture<\/h2>\n

One of the artists has assimilated a collection of art reference books over the years into a library that many people on the WoW art team use during their weekly sketch meetup.\u00a0 This is really similar to what I’ve been doing for a while now — collecting games as references not just for their raw entertainment value, but also as references for things I want to experiment with in the future.\u00a0 I also like the idea of a weekly meetup.\u00a0 TAGD has bi-weekly jams that serve much the same purpose.<\/p>\n

Another cool thing is the mentorship pipeline at Blizzard.\u00a0 I would love the chance to work closely with an experienced game developer.\u00a0 Blizzard has a really positive attitude towards continuing education and often brings in teachers for the artists.\u00a0 They have classes ranging from Anatomy to Color Theory.<\/p>\n

As a side note, Steve Nelson got his job working at Blizzard by working on FX on another MMO in the style that Blizzard was looking for.\u00a0 I suppose the lesson is to work on projects you’re passionate about so people who might hire you know what you want to do.<\/p>\n

Artistic Process<\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. Quick ink sketches<\/li>\n
  2. Develop sketches further, this time adding in value and lighting<\/li>\n
  3. Create “postcard” images to communicate overall look and theme and color palette.<\/li>\n
  4. 3D Models<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Sketches are used to communicate broad strokes like architectural styles or reoccurring motifs, and aren’t necessarily a final representation of what an asset will look like in the game.\u00a0 Textures are treated like an oil painting — slowly refined over time.\u00a0 Character artists on the WoW team often work from concept to completion, which I’m told is an abnormal thing in the industry.\u00a0 Artists have a lot of creative input and aren’t restricted to closely following the concept art.<\/p>\n

    Portfolio Do’s And Don’ts<\/h2>\n
      \n
    • Keep it simple<\/li>\n
    • Focus on art (or in my case, development)<\/li>\n
    • Be apparent what you want to do<\/li>\n
    • Customize your portfolio for the job you’re applying for<\/li>\n
    • Show your passion for the job you want<\/li>\n
    • Limit your portfolio to only your great pieces (like 3-5 of them)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      They really emphasized this idea of focusing down on what you’re trying to represent yourself as.\u00a0 Character artists make characters.\u00a0 FX artists make explosions.\u00a0 Anything else is distraction during the hiring process.<\/p>\n

      Another thing they hit home with is the idea that we should be putting in the practice hours now while we have time, before we can’t.\u00a0 Reverse engineer things that you love and try to re-create it.\u00a0 Do studies.\u00a0 Explore and experiment, but also know your lane.\u00a0 Try different things but excel at one thing.\u00a0 Blizzard is clearly looking for people who know exactly what they want to do.<\/p>\n

      Internships<\/h2>\n

      Blizzard internships are live now!\u00a0 I plan on applying soon.\u00a0 For those interested, the deadline to apply is December 10th.\u00a0 You must be studying at a university\/college in the United States and returning to school to be eligible.\u00a0 More information available at ur.blizzard.com.<\/p>\n

      Full Time Employment<\/h2>\n

      Submit job applications 60-90 days prior to graduation at jobs.blizzard.com.\u00a0 You can also sign up for email alerts there.<\/p>\n

      ~Caleb~<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      On November 1st, I got the chance to attend a behind-the-scenes event with the campus game developer club (Texas Aggie Game Developers) where artists from Blizzard gave an inside look at the life and culture of the World of Warcraft team.\u00a0 Jeff Parrott (Art Manager) and Steve Nelson (Senior 3D Artist) connected with us through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"page-templates\/no-sidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[6,5,8,7],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-event","category-tagd","tag-art","tag-blizzard","tag-industry","tag-portfolio"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/blizzLarge-1-e1509732794225.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paXf4J-11","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":340,"href":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serket.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}